Poetry Foundation Poem of the Day

How to Speak Nineteenth Century

Forget about the nomenclature
of the moon: lunar impact craters, rilles; your voice
translated into fiber optics or beamed pinpoint to pinpoint
on the planet. Here, all words are spoken to someone’s face.Earth. Seeds. Thresher. Plow. Timber’d.

So unnerving, you say,
having to look someone that long in the eye, just speaking
your mind. Or too involved, in the first place,
the five-mile walk to your friend’s house,
your skirt catching on the field grass.

You need to know not hydrogen, oxygen, H2O, butwater: where to find it, how to dig
for it, how to ford it, how to keep a well from running dry.

Not chlorophyll and photosynthesis,
the word is harvest–the hard “t”
uncompromising as hunger–